Michelle Isemonger

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262 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 19 Jul

Michelle Isemonger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Prosperity Project · What banks really check before approving your mortgage · 19 Jul 2026 podcast

Thank you so much for having me.

I think, well, I always say a good starting point is chatting to a broker even well before you think you might want to buy a property.

Because even though you might not be ready to buy a property, it's always good to have a chat with someone, sort of have a further understanding in terms of what type of income do you have, how is that going to affect your application overall.

What sort of deposit do you have?

And sort of mapping out a plan and even putting in place a budget that when it comes time to buying a property, you know what your income is, what your outgoings are, what your deposit is, because the more prepared you are before your application, the easier the application process is going to be essentially.

Not so much, which is good.

I do know the banks still use bank statement scrapers to sort of see what you are spending on.

And it is a matter of, obviously, you don't want to be going out and getting more debt or doing anything like that.

But it is just a matter of tidying up your account so that there's no sort of gambling or bad spending habits.

But you don't have to, you know, the joke was that you weren't allowed to eat avocados and

If you wanted to buy your first home, it's not quite like that anymore, which is really good.

But yeah, you want your bank accounts to be, I guess, appealing to the bank that they're not going to look at them and go, oh God, you know.

I guess it comes down to whether it's a personal or professional opinion.

If you do borrow slightly less than what the bank allows you to borrow, you'll find that you have a bit more income left over that you can throw at your mortgage.

So yes, the banks generally sort of stress test you at about 2% higher than what the market rates are.

Obviously, that's when you have a 20% deposit.

It's a little bit different if it's the other way around.

But the way that a table loan works, realistically, you're paying majoritively interest up front.

Almost 80% of your repayment is interest, which is a bit sad to say.

So if you're borrowing a little bit less, you have a little bit more cash left over.

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